Hi. I'm a painter, a writer and a mother of three teenage sons, one with a severe disability. This is a journal: riotously disorganized, full of art, food, children and everyday domestic events. Unless you are a friend or family member you may not be interested, but you are welcome to look. Artists who are parents may find some
common ground here, as well as parents of children with special needs. For art only, see my site: nancybeamiller.blogspot.com

Wednesday, February 27

Yes, I know I should not be buying fruit so far out of season that it must be transported thousands of miles to get here. And normally we make a real effort to eat locally grown food, in season. But of course, there's not much in season around here in February! And so today in the grocery store, these gorgeous berries were too much of a temptation for me. A huge sale: probably because they are perfectly ripe and tomorrow they will be overripe and unsaleable. Their heavy sweet perfume (on deep discount!) wafted out over the entire produce section, a siren song I just could not resist.

Friday, February 22

ARTis the theme this week at Photo Friday. No problem doing this one! I'm getting ready for a show in May at a NYC gallery, and so am painting my head off. My studio is very cold in the winter, which keeps the paint from drying as fast as I would like. So when Henry is at school during the week I set up a drying studio in his room, which is very sunny and warm. On overcast days and in the evening I also have lamps set up, to help the paint set up a little faster.

Many oil painters will find this incredibly odd. It's an unfashionable technique, the building up of slow layers. Nowadays it's mostly about "from the hip" painting, or alla prima, done all at once. I absolutely can work in that style too, and do when I am painting out of doors, or from a one-time model. But for my studio work, I like to build a painting up slowly in layers, and so the paint must dry to the touch in between sessions. I currently have fourteen paintings in various stages of completion.

My method seems to flummox a lot of other artists. But I am the kind of person who can be reading several different books at once, too. I never get them mixed up, and always remember where I left off with each one, and its very much the same with the paintings. So maybe its more of a how one's brain works thing, rather than a purely aesthetic thing?

Tuesday, February 19

UNCERTAIN FUTURE

sun-painted clouds driftover the hill, into night-I pause on my way

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I always wonder about this farm, which is right near Henry's school. I've never seen anyone about except an elder lady at the mailbox occasionally. When I stopped to take this photo last week, she was driving by and paused, motioning at me to see if I was alright. When I pointed to my camera, smiling, she seemed to get the idea and went away with a wave. I could have kicked myself as her tail lights disappeared down the road, wishing I'd thought to ask her a little about this place. But, really, what was I going to ask? "Hi, just wondering how long do you think you'll be able to hold out against the encroaching suburban sprawl?"

Monday, February 18

Chicken FeedWe are chicken-sitting for my next-door neighbor! I always enjoy it, and so does young H who has been my right hand man. It's such a clearly illustrated equation: give chickens food, collect food (eggs) from chickens. I remember my fifth grade teacher, Mr. Iassagna, trying to hammer this life lesson into us: "Life is a two way street, people!" he'd boom from time to time. Of course, he was right, but it's an easier lesson to grasp in a hands-on way. Bring on the chickens!

Sunday, February 17

HEART OF THE STUDIOYes, sorry, how unexciting: my chair! When Studio Friday proposed this theme I tried hard to come up with some other, more interesting, answer. But, honestly, this is it. The heart of the studio is where I plonk my behind down and paint. Sometimes, I stand to paint, but I thought a shot of only a few floorboards would be even less inspiring than my ratty old chair. ;-)

Friday, February 15

BEAUTIFUL INFINITY

The World

I saw Eternity the other nightLike a great ring of pure and endless light, All calm, as it was bright,And round beneath it, Time, in hours, days, years Driven by the spheresLike a vast shadow moved, in which the world And all her train were hurl'd...

Thursday, February 14

PINK ROSES

Now, the pink roses.Youth's passionate red blossoms following Child's white.And now comes the lovely pink,glowing deeply in the heart.

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This is a tanka (5, 7, 5, 7, 7) written in response to the prompt at One Deep Breath: "This week I invite you to break the "rules" and write a haiku on the subject of love. If you are a traditionalist, you might choose to write a tanka instead... which, more often, include an emotional element." I guess I'm a bit of a traditionalist. Happy Valentine's Day!

Friday, February 8

I'M HONOREDto have one of my paintings reproduced in the new quarterly magazine, Artful Blogging. It's in an article (page 11) about a meme I sometimes enter called Illustration Friday. I'm only a sporadic participant so I was truly surprised and delighted that that particular image caught the writer's eye and was included with a dozen other artist's pieces in the article. It's a painting of my friend Katie and her daughter Hazel in a grove of trees, done a few years ago when I was on an idyllic artist's residency....

Sunday, February 3

CROWDEDThe Studio Friday meme posed the question "What is your pet peeve in the studio?" Like many other people's, mine is lack of space. This my third studio out of school, and for various reasons, each has been smaller than the last. And my work has gotten successively smaller and smaller too, probably in direct response. The last time I painted a six foot tall canvas was when I was an art student and had a school studio with a fourteen foot ceiling!

I hate to complain, because taking a global perspective, or a historical one, I appreciate how privileged I am simply to have a room of my own at all, however small. Nonetheless, I do kind of miss that thing called elbow room!

Friday, February 1

MISTY MOUNTAINYou'd never know, but this is The Beehive, at Acadia State Park in Maine. For Photo Friday's challenge: mist. I used the Accented Edges filter in PhotoShop to add a little drama.The fog comeson little cat feet.It sits lookingover harbor and cityon silent haunchesand then moves on.-Carl Sandburg

November

by Elsa Beskow

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The photographs on this site were taken with either a Canon EOS T3i, a Nikon D-70, an iPhone, or a Canon Powershot SD1000. For photo reproduction/purchase inquiries please contact me at nb (at) genrecookshop (dot) com